ax_main | Eileen and Wanda | Backdated to 7/11

After her discussion with Clint about Cal having been hijacked to Limbo, Wanda decides venting is in order. And Mexican food. Eileen's up for both.

It hadn't taken much to track down Lance, or Pietro, or to dump the whole mess in the latter's lap with instructions to deal with his newbie and make sure she realized that the guy she'd sent to hell could apparently kill her in her sleep. Not that she was sure he could, but fuck, at least that might make the girl think twice next time.

That done, it had taken even less time to track down Eileen, inform her that guys were idiots, and propose Mexican food. Given that Eileen wasn't opposed to food and put "guys were idiots" at the same level of fact as "water is wet", they were now at a table in a nearby Mexican taqueria that had crappy decor, decent food, and that took IDs at face value. Which was good, because a marguerita hadn't sounded like a bad idea, either. Especially since she had to break other news to Eileen as well.

First things first, though.

"I still can't believe he came all the way to New York to chew me out for Illyana sending his friend to Limbo. And then just left. What the fuck is it with guys?" Wanda demanded of the other girl.

"You're asking me?" Eileen posed, halfway through the act of bringing her Corona to her mouth for a calming, pre-dinner chug. "Hell if I know. My best guess is it's a combination of evolution only giving them a big enough blood supply to operate their brains, dicks, or stomachs properly at any given time and testosterone being only slightly less effective at killing off neurons than paint thinner. But Christ, it's anybody's guess."

She finally did take that drink, and sighed loudly as she finished. "He's one of the Right's, isn't he? Everybody tends to come out of there pretty fucked up. I mean, look at Pam and Alex. Maybe it's some kind of total codependent headcase solidarity ... thing. Anyway, it's not like she just left him there. People just need to stop being so goddamn dramatic about every little fucking thing."

"No shit." Wanda sighed and tilted her head onto her hand. "I mean, okay, I get that he's upset because his friend's a mess over it. I get that his friend is apparently a huge mess, post-captivity. But honesty, he didn't have to just chew me out, freak out a little, and leave. I had questions."

"Does seem pretty counter-productive. I mean, you're Rasputin's team leader," one of them, anyway, "not her mom. Sure as hell not her babysitter. What are we supposed to do? Fucking ground her? Yeah, that'll get a lot of traction with a freaking teleporter. But arguing with crazy people is just the surest way to end up crazy, yourself. Maybe give the guy some time to calm the hell down, then try asking questions." Eileen raised a curious blond eyebrow. "What questions do you have, anyway? Seems pretty straightforward to me."

"Well, I'd kinda like to know if the crazy guy actually pissed her off and she sent him there, or if she took him and he cried foul afterwards, but Pietro can find that out from her," Wanda acknowledged. She sighed again, and picked up her drink and took a sip before getting to the rest. Fortification. Definitely needed, here and now. "Also, he kind of let slip something about Pam having nearly killed the same guy, and I wanted to know what the fuck happened with that."

Eileen's immediate response was to finish off her cerveza, hissing, "Son of a bitch." She bit vindictively into a tortilla chip, and once she wasn't in immediate danger of choking, went on, "Okay. Two things: first, this guy seems like some kind of mutant lightning rod for near death experiences involving our teammates. Which probably means the rest of us should keep a healthy distance. Second thing: why haven't we dragged Pam--and Alex!--back home where they belong? She never really seriously tried to kill anybody at Asteroid M, and we've got some of the most annoying shits nature ever invented living there."

"Right? Which means this guy's gotta be something worse. Or that he started it." Wanda shook her head. "And we can't drag them back if they don't wanta be there. You know that. Even if I think they made a really fucked up choice, they made the choice. Think back a year or so - that's pretty fucking huge."

"I absolutely can drag them back, if you and Lance would just let me," Eileen grumbled, and signaled their server for another drink. She was going to need a much stronger buzz than she had at that moment to continue this conversation.

"Okay, fine," she huffed. "I'll grant you that it was a big step for them, in terms of deciding shit for themselves on their own. But that doesn't make it not a fucked-up call. And sometimes, part of having your teammates' backs is calling them on their bullshit and making them come back to where stuff makes sense and there are practically no attempted homicides."

Wanda sighed. "It wasn't making sense to them, though - or at least not to Alex. And do you honestly think you can drag Pam back without him? Or that they wouldn't just end up more fucked up if you did?" She shook her head and took another drink. "Having their backs is a definite thing, though. We need to find out what the fuck happened. From what Clint said, this Cal guy is just about as fucked in the head as Pam is. How do we know she wasn't just defending herself?"

"It's Pam," Eileen grimaced. "I think there's about a fifty-fifty chance he started it, versus her just not liking his fucking face, or some damn thing. So, yeah. A little clarity there might make me feel better about her staying. Assuming she actually wants to."

"Maybe you should ask her?" Wanda suggested. "I mean, take her out to lunch or some shit, and bring it up. If nothing else, it'd let her know we've got her back if she needs it."

"Maybe," Eileen harrumphed, snapping the cap off her second Corona as it was brought to her, though she didn't drink right away. "I guess I'm almost done being mad at them for leaving, anyway. Might as well make sure they're okay." Pam and Alex had, in an unofficial kind of way, always been her kids. And as much as she prided herself on her ability to hold a grudge, internally, at least, she could admit she missed having them around.

"She'd probably appreciate knowing that." Wanda took another sip from her glass, then set it down. "That you weren't pissed anymore, I mean. Alex, too."

An inarticulate grunt was all the response that garnered, initially. Eileen took a sip of her beer, then petulantly noted, "I said I was almost done being mad. But she definitely shouldn't be running around shanking people and not telling me about it. So I guess I can compromise. For the team."

Wanda tried, hard, not to smile, and just nodded sagely. "We appreciate it. A lot. You know she wouldn't talk to me."

"Appreciate my skinny blond butt," Eileen harrumphed. She wasn't sure just how Wanda was laughing at her, but she was pretty sure she was. "Anyway. I'll talk to Pam--as much as she feels like saying. What about your crazy boy? That a dead-end street, or you gonna try and patch things up, if you can?"

"First off, he's not crazy," Wanda pointed out, giving Eileen a look that strongly suggested that further use of the word would not be a good idea. "Second - fuck if I know. I'd like to patch things up? But I'm really not big on being walked out on."

Eileen's mouth twisted as she bit back the response that walking out on Wanda in the first place was a pretty big tick in the "crazy" column, as far as she was concerned, then promptly drowned it entirely in decent-ish Mexican beer. When she came up for air again, she shrugged. "I don't really do the touchy-feely bullshit. That's not news to you. But ..." She mulled the situation over and shrugged again. "If you wanna piece things back together, then you should do that. Your awesome, and anybody with two eyes and a functioning brain stem can see it. But it's gonna be hard to do that and make him get why he was wrong to come at you that way. Is there anything you can back off on, so he can think of it as a compromise?"

"No clue. And honestly, I don't know that he was wrong to come bitch. I mean, she's out teammate, that part makes sense to me. I'm just pissed he showed up, bitched, and then walked out." Her eyebrows rose, though, and she smiled crookedly. "Also? Considering this is really my first shot at dating, there's apparently a fuckload of guys out there without two eyes or a functioning brainstem. So I'd kinda like it to last longer than two dates." Especially considering Clint was definitely no slouch when it comes to making out, but saying as much to Eileen just felt weird. If the other girl had been listening to their harmonies or anything, she really didn't want to know.

"So you're mad he flounced off before you could get your two cents in?" Eileen asked. "'Cause, honestly, I have no idea why this is even a fight worth having. Pam is a borderline-psychopath with severe impulse-control issues--it's one of the things I like best about her, but it also makes it hard to figure out what she's gonna do for one minute to the next, sometimes. If we'd been there, we probably could have calmed her down. If Alex had been there," which, she was assuming, he hadn't been, "he probably could have calmed her down. Maybe she overreacted, maybe that other guy is a prick and deserved to get stuck. But how the hell is it your responsibility to rein in a teammate who doesn't even live in the same county anymore? I guess I don't really see what it has to do with you at all, unless it's a bullshit guilt-by-association thing."

"Oh! No, he actually came to bitch about Illyana," Wanda explained. "He just mentioned Pam in passing. I'm not even sure when that happened."

"Well," Eileen hummed. "Still not a fight worth having. He lodged his complaint, and we'll deal with it. If Pietro can't get through to Rasputin, maybe Pyro can. But I'm pretty sure she values the team above banishing alleged douchebags to sort-of-Hell."

"Let's not mention it to Pyro for now?" Wanda requested. "If Pietro can't handle it, fine. But the last thing we need is him going off half cocked because someone pissed off his girlfriend and deciding the school would look better with some char marks on the walls."

"Fine," she conceded with ill-grace. "Probably not a good idea to put the firebug in the middle of it with you." Eileen sighed heavily, and looked around for their server. "Christ, when did shit get so complicated? And where the hell are my tacos? I at least deserve to be fed, after trying to navigate this river of horse shit with you."

"Yeah, that's a good question." Wanda glanced around as well, but their server was nowhere to be found. "You think we scared him off?"

"No," Eileen told her, eyes flashing violet briefly. "He's in the back, chatting up one of the bartenders. Want me to knock him out, so they send somebody else?"

"Seems kinda drastic," Wanda pointed out. "Remember what Lance said about keeping a low profile? It probably includes not knocking out waiters for crappy service."

"Lance is a total killjoy," the blond complained. "And you're letting him turn you into one, too. All right, let's go back to navigating the horse shit, since my tacos take second place to Romeo's lame workplace come-ons."

"Ugggh. Pick a new topic, then. My love life's temporarily depressing." Wanda propped her head up with her hand and looked across the table with interest. And smirked. "What about yours? You need a love life. We should fix you up with Clint's psycho friend."

One blond eyebrow arched. "He's had life-and-death run-ins with both Pam and Rasputin, so far," she said sarcastically. "Do you really think he'd be able to stand talking to me for more than five minutes? I'm not exactly the feminine ideal, for mutants or flatscans."

"Hey, maybe that's his type. How would I know?" She'd gotten a look at him when they'd all gone shopping, but he'd taken off even before she had. "I saw him once. He was pretty hot. Besides," she reasoned, "you could handle anything he could conceivably dish out."

"I'm not anybody's type," she muttered, glaring at her beer for reasons she had no intention of sorting out, much less articulating. "I'd probably just end up traumatizing him more. Christ knows, I'm better at that than ... y'know, regular ... .people ... teenage ... stuff." And that admission practically demanded another long pull off of the Corona, a demand to which she acceded immediately.

Wanda frowned. "I always kinda figured that was intentional," she admitted. "Y'know, scare the people off so you didn't have to deal with them. Not so much?"

"It's absolutely on purpose," Eileen returned, glowering into the bowl of complementary tortilla chips between them. "People suck--must of them can fuck off to the land of no-shits-given while sucking an entire haversack of dicks. It's just ... " She trailed off with a grimace.

"It's just gotten hard to turn it off, you know? Even if maybe sometimes I want to." Maybe.

"I've seen you do it," Wanda observed. She took a sip of her drink and eyed Eileen over the edge of her glass. "You had a fuckload more patience with Alex and Fatale than I ever did. And hell, you're best friends with Pyro. He's my newbie, and I still want to strangle him once in a while."

"Meh. The firebug has his girlfriend now, and if I'd done such a great job with Fatale and Alex, they'd still be at Asteroid M. Anyway, we're not here to talk about me and my stupid hangups. We're here to eat Mexican food and trash your sort-of boyfriend before you guys get back together. I think. I've never actually done this kinda thing before."

"Oh, like I have?" Wanda pointed out. "Besides, I'm done trashing Clint. I'm down to just quietly seething, which is a hell of a lot less likely to bring down the roof." The waiter came and delivered their tacos, apologizing profusely, and Wanda rolled her eyes and waved him off. Whatever. There were more important things than late tacos right now. "You know Fatale and Alex weren't your fault, right?" she said quietly.

Eileen took a moment to drench one of her tacos in hot sauce, then shoved half of it into her mouth. The spicy sting made her eyes water a little, but that was fine. That was the point, really. There wasn't anything more to be read into it than a bit of excess heat in her meal. "They were absolutely my fault," she said flatly. "I should have done more, done better. I shouldn't have fucking gone off by myself in Montana. I shouldn't have let them just leave like they did. Goddammit."

"You didn't let them leave," Wanda pointed out. "Lance and I let them leave, and I still think we did the right thing. If Alex feels like he need time off, he need time off. Aren't you the one who said they need to be kids, too, not just soldiers? And I'm the one who told you and Pyro to go in Montana, without having any clue what you were heading into. If the whole clusterfuck was anyone's fault, it was mine."

"No," Eileen insisted. "The worst thing you ever did was assume I was competent. Ugh. Let's not argue about this, please. It's just going to make both of us feel like shit."

"Too late, already there. But you shouldn't be." Wanda rolled her eyes. "Y'know, I thought it was a sign of the apocalypse when Pyro came to me and Lance and insisted it was his fault. Now you. The fucking world is going to end, and when it does, I'm blaming you both."

"It's kind of an ass-stupid world, anyway," she grunted. "And I'll feel as shitty as I want to; I got blown up with a bazooka, remember?" Which had caused Pyro to try to torch the place, which had led to ... really complicated things. Consciences flaring, that kind of crap. It was so tempting to just keep ordering Coronas until it didn't matter so much anymore. "Anyway, if you want the firebug to start feeling better about Montana, you should punish him--remember, he's used to your dad leading this group. And your dad probably would have come down on both of us like the Wrath of God, by this point."

"Yeah, I'm not my dad." Thank God for small favors. "I'm not punishing anyone for that clusterfuck. You guys did what made sense; it wasn't your fault they had a stockpile of explosives, or that Lance and I didn't know what the fuck we were doing." She fixed Eileen with a look. "You want to be punished, you're gonna have to find someone else."

"Me? Hell no. Trying to keep Freddy in Ho-Hos is punishment enough, thank you." Eileen waved the bottom of her beer around in a vague circle. "Anyway, I'm too smart to buy that absolution-through-suffering, Medieval bullshit. I'm talking about Pyro." She shrugged. "I mean, he'll get over it on his own, you do you. But it might take him a little longer if he's got to flagellate himself."

"He'll deal." Wanda took a drink, and quirked a faint smile. "Besides, he's got the newbie there to distract him from beating up on himself."

"Ugh, the newbie," Eileen groaned, taking another pull from her bottle. The non-Magik newbie. The one who was like the love child of Wikipedia and Mr. Spock. "She'll distract him, alright--he'll be spending half his time Googling most of the words she uses. Why did you and Lance even agree to that? I mean, I get we need somebody good with computers ... but seriously. We took on the girl with the personality of one? Cure seems worse than the disease."

"Hey, Pietro recruited her." Wanda spread her hands in a "what can you do?" gesture. "And honestly, we need someone who can do the computer thing. Let's face it, none of us are any good at it, and I have no clue how my dad used to get his intel." She shrugged. "Anyway, maybe Pyro'll get her to loosen up. And it won't kill him to add a few words to his vocabulary."

"Odds are, she's going to make the firebug more tense," the blond smirked. "Can't argue with the expanded vocabulary perk, I guess. And we do need the intel." Eileen still wasn't exactly sanguine about the whole thing ... but she could admit, to herself, that it made practical sense. "And since when does Pietro do recruitment? I thought his thing was a giant one-fingered salute to the world. And glitter."

"Yeah well, since when do I co-lead the team? Everyone's gotta step up." Wanda shrugged. "He liked her and figured she'd be useful. And thought she was hot. I'm not sure which factored in more."

"I'd say a 70/30 balance of hotness and usefulness," Eileen grunted. "But I guess you're right; we've all gotta do shit now we never would have thought about back when your dad was in charge." She drummed her fingertips against the side of her mostly-empty bottle. "Sorry for the woe-is-me crap before. I promise I'll have it back together before we move again."

"Please. If we moved today, you'd have it together. I know you." Wanda smirked at the other girl, then picked up her taco and took a bite.

"Yeah, well," Eileen drawled, dousing another taco in hot sauce. "I know you, too. And for what it's worth, I think you and the killjoy are exactly what this team needed." She crammed three-quarters of the taco into her mouth before she could go and get all sentimental and lame.

Wanda rolled her eyes. "Yeah, right." She smiled a little, though. Given that Eileen had always been one of her father's biggest fans, that meant a lot. And if there was one thing that could be said for Eileen (actually, there were a lot, but most people didn't realize that) it was that she never said things she didn't mean.